


our would-be selves

by luckybarton



Category: Shugo Chara!, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Shugo Chara! Fusion, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Awesome Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Banter, Comedy, Crime Fighting, Crossover, Fannishness, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Guardian Characters, Humor, International Fanworks Day, International Fanworks Day 2018, Just Feels In General, Not Canon Compliant, Steve Rogers Feels, The Avengers Are Good Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 05:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13698240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckybarton/pseuds/luckybarton
Summary: In which the Marvel Cinematic Universe contains Guardian Characters, Clint is a dork, and Bruce is sensible.Or, the Avengers are technically magical girls. Take your pick.





	our would-be selves

The chrome robot swung a massive punch through the air toward Tony, who narrowly avoided being hit by its flying fist. Its  _ literally  _ flying fist, which had detached from its arm and was spinning about wildly like an untied balloon. 

“Could use some help up here,” he said, dodging the shiny metal hand for a second and third time. It was getting less and less accurate with each attempt—sooner or later, it was going to hit a civilian. The robot swung again with its other arm, but was stopped by the Hulk, who rose up from the ground and stopped it mid-movement. Clint, seeing Bruce’s transformation, covertly nodded to a small yellow-haired Guardian Character, aimed at the fist, and shot it out of the air with an explosive arrow. Pieces rained from the sky as the Hulk gave a final blow to the control center of the machine, which made some choked noises and powered down.

“Nice work,” Steve shouted. He approached the body of the robot and pried a hatch on its side open, revealing nothing inside but machinery. “There’s nobody in here,” he said, more quietly. The message was relayed to his team members, who returned from their positions. Tony flipped his faceplate up and stared at it.

“This is too good for AIM,” he said, more closely inspecting the inner workings of the robot. “JARVIS, make sure SHIELD doesn’t get their hands on this bot for too long. I need to inspect it myself.”

Bruce returned to his normal form and collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Clint helped him back up and handed him a cotton shirt. “I’m going back to the tower. We’ll debrief later,” the archer said. The two exited the perimeter of the battle, walked to the entrance of a nearby subway station, and took the next train that would return them to Avengers Tower.

Taking the subway back from Avengers duties, whether it was a battle, public relations, or simply helping Captain America save a cat from a tree—that had really happened, and it  _ had _ been official—was Clint’s favourite thing to do. It was almost like taking the train to a convention, except that you usually didn’t run into more and more cosplayers as you approached your destination. Not that Clint would ever  _ admit _ to cosplaying, at least to Tony. That had been a totally serious undercover mission to New York Comic Con. Of course.

In any case, the staring was exactly the same, and  _ hilarious. _ Bruce, he’d observed, seemed rather less into it. On the occasion he accompanied him, Bruce would character change with his second Guardian Character, Epicurus, to become even more zen than he usually was. This time was different. Clint tapped him on the shoulder.

“Are you okay? How’s Hulk,” he asked, loudly enough to be heard but quietly enough to not have their conversation eavesdropped upon.

“I think he’s sleeping,” Bruce replied, “in my shirt pocket. How’s Hawkeye?”

“You can ask him,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. Hawkeye—Clint’s Guardian Character—gave a completely inaccurate retelling of the events of the battle, save the part where the fist had exploded. That had been cool. “That is still a completely crazy character change. How do you do that?”

“I dunno, gamma rays,” Bruce replied, dryly. “You ask me this—”

“—every time,” Clint finished for him. “Because if I can turn into a giant archer—”

“No,” Bruce said, smiling and shaking his head, “I’m not helping you do that.”

“It would certainly be unwise,” stated Epicurus.

“Shush, you,” Clint admonished. “Bruce can be Green Hulk, I can be Purple Hulk. What’s wrong with that?”

“Our stop’s next,” Bruce noted. “We need to transfer to the Purple Line, right?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, “that should get us pretty close. Anyway, Purple Line. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know  _ what  _ is.”

“We got on a line that intersects with the Purple Line. That’s not an omen,” Bruce said, “and the alternative would have been the Green Line, and we’d be having the  _ exact same conversation.” _

Hawkeye floated to his ear and stage-whispered, “Damnit, he's right.”

“Since when were you my voice of reason?” Clint muttered back. Bruce stifled a laugh.

“So, I told Tony,” Bruce said, clearly out to cause trouble. The train stopped, and they rushed out onto the platform.

“You  _ what?” _ Clint said, trying to convince himself that he was, in fact, being mock indignant.

“I told Tony,” Bruce enunciated, “about your super-duper top secret SHIELD sanctioned mission to the deep, dark bowels of Comic Con. What are you going to do about it?”

“It’s good you’ve got the Hulk,” Clint said, “or I  _ would _ make you angry. Instead, I’m just gonna have to suffer. How’s that make you feel?”

“Like you’re going to have a hell of a time back at the Tower,” Bruce said, stifling a smile. Even Epicurus looked smug. 

“Fine,” Clint said, “but you know he’s going to have Jarvis on face recognition, right? He’ll ID you dressed up as Doctor Horrible.”

“It’ll be worth it,” Bruce replied.

When they got back to the Tower, Tony was already there. He had also already found the pictures of Bruce, but none of Clint.

_ “What?” _  Bruce whispered, sounding put out that his plan had backfired. 

“You’re forgetting,” Clint said, smugly, “that I was No-Face. No face.”

Bruce groaned.

It turned out that wasn’t all Tony could find, though. After a search for Clint-produced dirt on Clint turned out to be fruitless, he started onto fan-produced dirt on Clint. And by god, there was a lot of it.

“Look at this picture,” Tony would say over dinner, leaning over with his tablet.  _ “The Hawkeye Initiative?” _

“I didn't start it!” Clint exclaimed. 

“You encouraged it,” Hawkeye piped up, and Clint was  _ so glad _ Tony couldn’t see his Guardian Character. So, so glad. Steve stifled a laugh—at Tony’s remark, of course, because Steve didn’t have a Character either and so couldn’t have heard what Hawkeye had said.

It was just him and Bruce, which was slightly lonely, but way better than Clint’s past experiences. When he had been sure he was crazy. He’d seen them on the street, rarely, or in the crowd at the circus, but now he  _ knew  _ another person with a Guardian Character, and that was amazing. Doubly amazing that there were two of them, which was something Clint had never seen beforehand.

It continued into the evening. Bruce was spared most of the mocking, seemingly because Tony was also a huge fan of Doctor Horrible and had apparently been looking for someone to discuss it with for far too long. “Oh, hey, here’s one with the two of you,” Tony said. Bruce covered his eyes. “Not like that,” Tony amended. Bruce opened a crack between his fingers, peering out with one eye.

“It’s cute,” Bruce said, finally. It was a cartoon image of Clint and Bruce standing off against some kind of dragon monster, with what Clint recognized as their Guardian Characters floating by their sides.

“So there’s a little Hulk, and a little zen dude,” Tony said, pointing, “and a little blond Clint. Weird, right?”

“Definitely weird,” Clint replied. Hawkeye floated over Clint’s shoulder to get a better vantage point, and Hulk emerged from the pocket of Bruce’s hoodie to look as well. Natasha side-eyed the three of them.

“Do you want to watch this show that Bruce and Tony have been going on about?” she asked, providing a welcome change of topic. “I found it on Youtube.”

The next day, the Avengers are called out again, this time to Central Park.

“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Tony shouted, circling above the swirling maelstrom that the area around the Delacorte Clock had become. “Where’s the issue?”

“That’s the issue,” Steve shouted over the wind, “the giant purple storm that just  _ knocked over  _ the Delacorte Clock.”

“I saw it fall,” Tony said from above. “But I don’t see the  _ giant purple storm.  _ Are the rest of you getting this?”

“I’m seeing it,” Clint said, grimly, “and I don’t want to shoot an arrow into it when I don’t know what’s inside.”

“I’m seeing it, too,” Natasha said. “Tony, what do you see?”

“I see a kid,” Tony said, “do I approach him?”

“I think your visor is blocking it out,” Bruce said, “try lifting your faceplate, see if you can get what the rest of us are seeing.”

“Nada,” Tony replied, “look, I’m going to approach the kid. He looks... eight? Dark hair,” Tony flew closer, “hey, kid—” Tony was flung backwards, crashing hard against a tree trunk and falling to the ground. “Fuck. That hurt.”

“Is the kid causing it?” Clint asked, “I can’t shoot a  _ kid.” _

“Don’t you have some kind of knock-out arrow?” Tony asked.

“I don’t think that’s really a thing,” Clint replied, “they’re, you know, designed to puncture as many organs as possible and kill you.”

“I got it,” Natasha said, and stepped into the storm herself, disappearing from view entirely.

“What the  _ fuck,” _  Tony said, “Natasha, no. I’ve got a suit, I know you’ve got, what, spider-web kevlar, but that’s  _ not enough.” _

Five minutes passed, and no flying Natasha. The storm was shrinking, though, and had reached less than half of its original size. It soon cleared almost entirely, revealing the boy Tony had been talking about. A black egg with a white X marked on it floated in front of him, then the black chipped off to reveal colour. The egg shook, and broke in two to reveal a Guardian Character—who said something to Natasha, then returned to its shell, which put itself back together and returned to the boy’s chest.

The boy looked up, dazed. “Where am I?” he asked. His eyes widened. “Are you the Avengers?”

Once they had delivered the child to a police station—upon Natasha’s insistence that this was an isolated occurrence—they went to get shawarma, because that was what they did whenever something particularly bizarre happened.

“I still don’t know why I couldn’t see it,” Tony said. “JARVIS couldn’t, either, and he’s got heat and IR sensors. And standard cameras. He should have picked up  _ something.” _

Steve shrugged. “It was strange. It's probably good you couldn’t see the storm, or we’d never have known it was a kid.” He glanced over to Natasha, “what did you do in there, anyway?”

“I spoke to him,” Natasha said, “that’s it.”

“Someone has to address the elephant in the room,” Bruce said, “which is, what the hell was that egg with the cross on it?”

Steve stared. “You saw that too?”

“What egg,” Tony said.

“Some people have the ability to see things called Guardian Characters,” Natasha said, “which are meant to represent who you want to become. Usually it’s because yours has hatched, which means you can see it.”

Tony looked away. “I used to have one,” he said, softly. “His name was Jarvis. He was an inventor, a really good one. And then one day, I stopped seeing him, and I stopped seeing other people’s, too.”

“I did, as well,” Steve said, “His name was Bucky, but I lost him when I became Captain America. He was always stronger than I was. But I could still see the others.”

“I had one, at one point,” Natasha said, “but the Red Room took her. I went through the same thing as that child, but nobody came to my aid. It destroyed her, and what remained of my soul.”

Clint bit into his shawarma. “I didn't know that.”

“Believe it or not, Clint, we still have secrets,” Natasha replied, “as evidenced by this conversation.”

“I don’t think you ever stop having a Guardian Character,” Bruce said, “not really, anyway. I used to have a different one, before I got... Hulk, and Epicurus,” he said. “I was an angry kid. Angry about everything, and my greatest wish was that I could do something about it. My Guardian Character was a manifestation of that, but he wasn’t Hulk.”

“Then where’d Bucky go?” Steve said, sounding pained, “and Jarvis, and why can I see the Characters still and Tony can’t?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce replied, “but to me it sounds like you became the people who you wanted to be. A stronger man, and a great inventor,” he said, glancing at both of them. “You can still want other things, though, and if you work out what they are, maybe one day you’ll find another Character. ”

Steve nodded. “I used to want to be a lot of things.”

“I’m a simple guy,” Clint said, “I just wanna be good at shooting arrows.”

“Your Character,” Bruce said, schemingly, “he has a name, right? Tell us, Clint.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “His name is Hawkeye.”

“You named your codename after your Guardian Character,” Tony breathed, “that is the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Just eat your damn food,” Clint replied, smiling.


End file.
